Mark Asquith gives a tip about focusing on sustainable growth

Mark Asquith: 00:00:01

Hey, my name is Mark Asquith and I'm the managing director and co

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founder of Captivate, a podcast hosting

distribution and monetization platform.

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And today I'm going to give you a tip

about podcasting and podcast growth.

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I'm the co founder of Captivate.

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We are a podcast hosting monetization

and distribution platform.

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And we really focus on helping the

serious independent creator to.

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Not only create a podcast, but to

build a scalable, meaningful audience,

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and to create a lot of diversity in

their monetization opportunities.

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I'm a big fan of not putting your

eggs in baskets when it comes

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to monetization, so diversity.

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In that monetization is

completely, completely paramount

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to the modern podcaster.

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I got into podcasting actually

back in, around: 2011

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and it's a bit of a weird one.

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So I'm a bit of a nerd collector

of, of all things DC comics

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and all things Star Wars.

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So back in about 20 10, 20 11,

20 12, somewhere around there, DC

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comics relaunched their massive line.

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Of comics that they did new

number ones for absolutely

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everything, absolutely everything.

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And I was just deep into reading them.

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And at the time I was sort of running

an agency, I was running a design

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agency and I was wanting to get

into, I suppose, having a bit more

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of a different creative outlet.

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I wanted to do something

different outside of work.

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And I was getting a little bit jaded

with agency life, always having to

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pitch for work, always having to kind

of, you know, put proposals together.

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Always having to, uh, justify

that proposal to people that

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really didn't understand what

they were trying to commission.

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So I was sort of frustrated there

and wanted this new creative outlet.

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So we started blogging.

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Gary Ehlert, who's now the head

of design here at Captivate.

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He and I started blogging about comics,

about pop culture, about movies and so on.

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And he said to me, we

should start a podcast.

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And I said, that is absolutely ridiculous.

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Why would we want to do that?

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It's not 2005.

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No one's watching Lost anymore.

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And I like to wear trousers and I

don't live in my mom's basement.

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So why would I start a podcast?

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Cause that's ridiculous.

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Anyway, we did.

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He sent me a microphone, which for

anyone that ever sees me on camera, the

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microphone is actually still behind me.

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It's a blue snowball microphone.

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And I was big into listening to podcasts.

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I was big into listening to things

like Kevin Smith and, all sorts

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of kind of pop culture shows.

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So he forced me into starting a podcast.

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And I was completely

hooked, completely hooked.

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So I started that podcast.

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I started a business podcast

because people asked me how

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we'd grown the business.

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And I thought, well, wait a sec,

maybe I could just answer that in an

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evergreen way by recording a podcast.

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And then I realized that podcasting

back then was really difficult for the

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normal person that wasn't a nerd like me.

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You know, I was building software, I

was doing creative work for people.

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So I knew how to do the

technical elements of it.

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But not many other people did.

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So I put together a software platform

and I've frankly been working in

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podcasting ever since and speaking all

over the world on podcasting for way too

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long now, like I said, over a decade.

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So that's how I got into it.

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And I absolutely love it.

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The one big thing that I

love about podcasting is.

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It's actually the thing that I started

falling in love with the second

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that I went to my first conference.

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So I went to New Media

Expo out in Las Vegas.

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So I went from over here in the North

of England and, uh, went out to Vegas.

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To a, it was a blogging and

a podcasting conference.

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This is not, it wasn't a podcast movement

or the podcast show or a pod fest.

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I'm talking, it was like the NAB show with

the tiniest little thing bolted onto it,

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which was almost a series of small meetups

and we called it a podcast conference.

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So I went out there, I sort of, I came

from this agency world where it was

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very much, all right, it's dog eat dog.

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You do your quote, we'll do our quote and

never the twain shall meet, we'll never

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be friends, we'll never see each other.

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And I thought that's crazy.

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So when I got into podcasting,

it was insane to me because

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everyone was really supportive.

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Everyone was collaborative.

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Everyone was friendly.

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I've made some friends.

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At that very first conference that I

still talk to, I'm still great friends

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with people like Jonathan Oakes, who

I still see to this day, wonderful,

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wonderful people and people I've gone

on to work with Rob Walsh from Libsyn,

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Todd from Blueberry, Elsie Escobar,

so many people that I class as friends

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that I've got to know over the years.

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And that's the thing I love about

podcasting is that no one's dragging you

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down, No, one's got tall poppy syndrome.

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We're all allowed to grow.

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We're all allowed to flourish because

there's enough room for all of us.

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And that's, I think that's the beauty.

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And that's what I still

love about podcasting.

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My big tip for a podcaster would

be focus on sustainable growth.

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All right.

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Let me explain that a little bit more.

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So everyone's looking for a quick win.

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Everyone's looking for a hack.

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Everyone's looking for the next big thing.

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Everyone's looking for how do I

go from one download to 10, 10 to

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a hundred, hundred to a thousand,

thousand to 10, 000, so on and so forth.

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But what they want to do is they want

to connect those dots too quickly.

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So what they're tending to do, especially

now, because companies are popping up

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that will give you quick downloads.

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And what they're doing is they're

seeking that next jump in downloads.

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But what they're not doing is

growing a sustainable audience.

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So that's what I want you to remember.

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Downloads are different from audience.

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What we're actually trying

to grow is audience.

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Because if we have an audience that's

genuine, if we have an audience

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that wants us and that likes us.

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Think right back to what I said

about the diversity monetization.

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One audience member will probably be

able to buy more than one thing from you.

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Merchandise, live event tickets.

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If you go and do a live recording, they

will be able to do things like give you

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a tip via something like Captivate's

tipping system, or they will be able to

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subscribe for five, 10, 15 bucks a month.

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and access bonus content, exclusive

content, early access windowed content,

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and you'll get that all from one person.

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Whereas if you're chasing downloads.

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The only thing that you can do is

keep chasing those downloads and you

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have to keep getting more of them.

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And it's not sustainable.

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In fact, you make less money that

way as an indie You will make less

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money that way than just focused

on a smaller, stable audience base.

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So focus on sustainable audience growth.

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You can find me at markasquith.

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com and at captivate.

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fm.

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And you can see all of my

links in the show notes.

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Thank you so much for

listening to podcasting people.